For some art media and techniques, time is an essential component. There are time-based art forms such as performance, images moving in film or digital, and music that act only through an unfolding. As one engage with these artworks, time is being marked off much in the same way a garden grows in cycles, and it is only over the course of time that one sees this evolution and the artwork is completed. Descanso Gardens’ new exhibition “ELEMENTAL | Marking Time” at the Sturt Haaga Gallery invites visitors to consider the moment-by-moment, step-by-step process that marks the passage of time, whether in the life cycles of the Gardens or in the process of art making. The show runs from August 14 – December 3, 2017.

“Marking Time” is part of the “ELEMENTAL” series of exhibitions in which the Sturt Haaga Gallery has been looking to forge substantial yet poetic relationships between contemporary art and the botanical gardens at Descanso. “ELEMENTAL” stepped into an expanded field that went beyond earth, wind and water to trace out enigmatic connections and create tangents between the temporal occurrences observed in nature and the unconventional hypotheses dreamed up in art. Now they are trying their hand with the element of time.

“This show is the 17th, since the opening of the Sturt Haaga Gallery in 2011, to connect in unusual and surprising ways the ideas we find in the garden with the manifestation of those same ideas in the work of artists,” said David Brown, executive director, Descanso Gardens. “Curator John David O’Brien has created a truly extraordinary experience that captures the additive process that marks the passage of time, whether in the life cycles of the Gardens or in the process of art making.”

Some visual arts such as painting or drawing are not generally thought of as time-based, yet today artists will often use their own intensive labor in creating a work, or sequences of related works, that are produced through long-term processes. The artists in “Marking Time” seek to draw visitors into a temporal dance with their artwork, to engage you in a longer than usual and pleasurable appreciation that mirrors what Descanso Gardens offers: a perceptual walk that marks off time.

Descanso Gardens is located at 1418 Descanso Drive, La Cañada Flintridge. The Sturt Haaga Gallery is open during exhibitions from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m daily. Gallery admission is included in admission to Descanso Gardens: $9 for adults; $6 for seniors and students with a school I.D.; $4 for children 5 to 12, and free for ages 4 and younger.

• August 11 to 13: Members-only preview
• August 14: Opens to the public

Founded as a public garden in 1953, Descanso Gardens is located at 1418 Descanso Drive, La Cañada Flintridge, CA 91011. Descanso Gardens is open daily (closed Christmas) from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is $9 for adults; $6 for seniors and students with a school I.D.; $4 for children 5 to 12, and free for ages 4 and younger.

Descanso Gardens is a member ­supported garden accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. Join Descanso Gardens as a member and enjoy free admission and early entry year­ round. Information: (818) 949­-4200 or descansogardens.org.